Rift 3.0 - Speclation & Wishlist

Well, it's Storm Legion now and we've defeated all six dragons, but yet we're only 60 levels and one expansion in, so there is still a lot of room left for expansions, which raises a lot of questions. After all, it seems highly unlikely that if a dragon god is killed their Rift plane is just stabilized, at least not forever.

Let's look at the established predecents for Rift's second expansion to start:
-It will include a new continent or two, or at least some new zones
-It will involve the rebirth of dragons and/or journeying into the planes through the Infinity Gate
-The level cap will be increased to 70, or perhaps 65
-The existing souls will gain new abilities
-It will probably be released sometime in 2014

Other than those assumptions we can pretty much take for granted, what does the future hold for us Ascended?
My predicitons

Theme?: There's been a lot of speculation about the planes themselves or other dimensions being new "continents" at some point, but I suspect that'll be later on. Instead, I think it's likely that we'll see Greenscale and Akylios return somehow more powerful than before as the bosses of the second expansion. Air & Death got their spotlight in Storm Legion, Fire & Earth got Infernal Dawn/Ember Isles, which leaves Life & Water. Although we have defeated them, the one Kelari at Ember Watch says "Have you heard the Aelfwar have got a new leader?" which hints they will be back. As for Akylios, remember all those Water Rifts and zone events in places like Ardent Domain and Seratos? The water invaders say things about how they will return someday - I doubt Trion would put all this in without a good reason.

New low level content?: I expect Trion will focus a little more on new lower level content this time, or at least make a new starting area. There might be a new Ascension storyline for Guardians and Defiants or even a new neutral race that can side with either faction - just like the Pandaren from WoW. The old Mathosia zones will probably also be revamped at some point.

New souls?: My answer to this is a resounding "yes". Once Trion makes one set of new souls available it naturally follows that more will be forthcoming in future expansions. Players expect it. If Trion were to stop creating souls it would make the Storm Legion souls seem rather awkward and out of place. Note that I wouldn't expect Trion to offer new souls with each expansion, but I think 10 souls for each calling seems like a nice round number to me.

Expect the new souls the tie in with the lore of the next expansion. Here are just a few ideas for souls that would fit well into a Life and Water theme:
-A soul that draws on the power of the four seasons (the seasons are a big part of the Plane of Life as well as world events already and I've always felt a season-themed soul would fit Rift's theme very nicely, especially Clerics)
-A Water Mage soul that pairs well with Stormcaller
-A Pirate-themed Rogue soul
-A shapeshifting soul
-A woodsman/lumberjack type soul

Another thing is the Storm Legion souls were all DPS and/or Healing types so I think it's likely that at least one of the new souls will be a new Tanking soul.

Wishlist - things I would LIKE to see in the next expansion, or future

-If and when Akylios does return, I would really like to see a seafaring themed continent full of islands, pirates, deep ones, and Abyssal cultists, and maybe a Vashjir-style underwater zone or two.
-Planar attunement needs more expanding with the recent account-wide changes and XP nerfs. Many if not most people have all seven maxed out now and Tier 3 won't provide that many more levels. I really think they need some bonus abilities for each plane that are simply "fun", and wouldn't influence a purely pragmatic raider. For instnce throw in some things like cosemetic Ascended Powers or even a Dimension themed around that element and some (now that would be awesome) and players would have more things to look forward to and choose from, especially if the bonus attributes end up costing more levels
-I'd like to see more lore on the Conquest factions and how they came into being. Maybe we could do daily quests for our favorite one and gain favor through PvE as well as PvP dailies in 3-way Aldor-Scryers fashion (gain rep with one, you lose rep with the other two). This would give players reasons to fight for the one they agree with lorewise. A couple more Conquest maps wouldn't hurt either.
-Going up to 71 soul points for each soul might be a little too much, it might be time to narrow down the soul trees a little. But I REALLY hope Trion NEVER does what Blizzard did with Mists and keeps the soul tree system instead of just giving us abilities...

My theory is they will chase Crucia to the Plane of Air and discover the Bahmi homeland (they came from the Plane of Air btw RP YEAH!!). The rest does sound plausible. End of 2014 beginning 2015 for sure.

While I love the idea of speculating what's coming the distant future, I think it's probably a good idea to focus on 2.2 and beyond and what is going to happen!, I mean the game change so so much between the launch and end of chocolate, I'm very interested to see where abouts the game will be at the end of 2.9/10/11 or whatever it happens to be ^^

Good grief people... do you even realize that we are only on patch 2.1???

We've got 8~12 huge content patches still ahead. This expansion, this story is far from over.

The dragons... were merely a setback.

History has now been changed (maybe)... the story can go in any direction now. I personally speculate that we will now start going after the villains beyond the infinity gate and perhaps... find out the gate has more than one use.

Because its trion im guessing we will have 2 new races, the planes will probably be another 'planet' we will more then likely see new starting zones for the new races, maybe the new races will be panderan style and could be on either faction. i think we might see a new calling with 9 new souls now that would be super cool, but a lot of work. i reckon they will focus a little more on pvp in the next expansion too and improve upon conquest and have more then 1 new warfront, and perhaps another go at normalization. All i know is that its going to be big, because people who play rift expect more and we are normally given more. Trion go out of their way to make every patch they do bigger and better so im guessing it will be the same for a new expansion, it will have to make storm legion look like a piece of shit otherwise a lot of people are going to be disapointed.

so i think we can expect to see something HUGE and it will have to out do storm legion, or a lot of players are going to be pissed lol.

Going from advice that some questions I raised would belong in another thread, I figured this was appropriate.

I had asked if original Rift killed the major antagonists so early on, as we are already defeating Regulos and Crucia, though I assumed we wouldn't 'really' defeat them.

Points were raised about the Planes, like mentioned in this thread, and it does seem like this is where the game is heading. It seems that we are developing the technology in a logical progression from being able to open rifts, to pulling things from within the rifts, to being able to open rifts and go through to the other side.

Thinking about this a little, I really thought that Rift would be able to present an awesome opportunity for us. Most people that played WoW know how awesome opening the gates of AQ was. I figure that the next expansion for Rift could be led up to with a similar event. If we are going through the planes, we are going to need some bases on the other side. Even though the concept is similar, I'm sure Trion would think of a way to distinguish it from that event.

Would anyone that plays like that idea? Of completing lots of special quests, dailies, and other events to help aid in completing technology to go through rifts, to establish bases on the other side, and then to launch the next expansion in the planes?

As something really cool that might be possible, maybe they could have some way that our decisions affects the way the base looks like a server's own dimension? Like where you have a choice with some quests on what to gather/do and whatever the majority decision is it changes the way the base will look?

I don't know how they would do it but a focus on player driven content owuld be nice..dimensions are great start and have some very powerful tools in them if they expand them further eg add rewards/competitions/mobs/ spawn points etc people could make more minigames in them.

Yeh, more main enemy would be nice...we open up the planes to reveal that cruicia and co are just mini bosses that have escaped from a very evil dominating boss. similar to how deathwing is a larger boss to ragnaros/ al'akir etc.

Points were raised about the Planes, like mentioned in this thread, and it does seem like this is where the game is heading. It seems that we are developing the technology in a logical progression from being able to open rifts, to pulling things from within the rifts, to being able to open rifts and go through to the other side.

Thinking about this a little, I really thought that Rift would be able to present an awesome opportunity for us. Most people that played WoW know how awesome opening the gates of AQ was. I figure that the next expansion for Rift could be led up to with a similar event. If we are going through the planes, we are going to need some bases on the other side. Even though the concept is similar, I'm sure Trion would think of a way to distinguish it from that event.

The thing is like, that could just be next month's update in Rift. Trion do dramatic stuff like that out of the blue in the past.

Basically all the dragons are dead in their corporeal form currently. Last year we even had a parade that traveled the world celebrating the death of the dragons.

I am not sure we will be waiting till the next expansion before getting some more villains.

The thing is like, that could just be next month's update in Rift. Trion do dramatic stuff like that out of the blue in the past.

Basically all the dragons are dead in their corporeal form currently. Last year we even had a parade that traveled the world celebrating the death of the dragons.

I am not sure we will be waiting till the next expansion before getting some more villains.

Oh I'm sure we'll get plenty of bad guys before then, but it does seem like where the lore is heading and it would be a great event to lead up to it. As solid as the content is, it doesn't seem like the SL quests that led up to it were like OMG amazing. Not that they needed to be, but they would have a unique opportunity if we are headed into the planes.

I don't know how they would do it but a focus on player driven content owuld be nice..dimensions are great start and have some very powerful tools in them if they expand them further eg add rewards/competitions/mobs/ spawn points etc people could make more minigames in them.

Or even better, user generated quests/dungeons! Give players some content creation tools and create a separate part of the game with its own rewards for both creators and those who run the content. EQ2 has a decent start with this (though it could be greatly expanded upon) and I know STO/CoH have/had some good content creation tools.

That would be a pretty cool thing to do. Possibly dimensions were a test for heading down that path? You could create so many mini games just inside of a dimension space with only a handful more tools. I'm still waiting on the TL2 editor to be released before I play that game again.

That would be a pretty cool thing to do. Possibly dimensions were a test for heading down that path? You could create so many mini games just inside of a dimension space with only a handful more tools. I'm still waiting on the TL2 editor to be released before I play that game again.

I'm really really hoping Dimensions were a testbed for user content creation tools. Like, full on dungeon creation with bosses and everything in the future. DO IT TRION, DO IT.

I was responding to Edge's comment and Edge's comment only. I was not referring to everyone in this thread, I was referring to the OP.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough originally, but I suppose it also has to do with your reading comprehension skills. Nicely done.

(Snide remarks don't make people excited to respond to you.)

You should take your own advice. Let me break down your last post, since you seem to have forgotten it already.

Originally Posted by DeltrusDisc

I'm sorry but I think that's just stupid.

Snide remark number 1.

Originally Posted by DeltrusDisc

I mean this thread bugs me enough,

Here's where you are clearly commenting on the entire thread.

Originally Posted by DeltrusDisc

but first week or month? Holy shit. Can people not live in the here and now and appreciate it for a bit? Good God!

And here is where you give a snide remark #2 and clearly comment on a larger group of people than just Edge. Since the people in this thread are doing exactly what you are complaining about, it's logical to infer that your comments apply to them.

So thank you for your kind advice, but shitting all over people discussing ideas doesn't make anyone excited to respond to you. Except maybe me, because I'm just that kind of person.